Fresh Water For Flowers by Valérie Perrin

Author: Valérie Perrin 

Title: Fresh Water For Flowers

Publisher: Europa Editions 

Published: 2021

Pages: 304

Genre: Contemporary Literature 

     Violett Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of the hilarious and touching confidences of random visitors and her colleagues-three gravediggers, three groundskeepers, and a priest. Violette's routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of police chief Julien Seul, wishing to deposit his mother's ashes on the gravesite of a complete stranger. Julien is not the only one to guard a painful secret: his mother's story of clandestine love breaks through Violette's carefully constructed defences to reveal the tragic loss of her daughter, and her steely determination to find out who is responsible.

     I was trying to find something different to read, to step away from my usual comfort zone genres and grasp a breath of fresh air. When it comes to Fresh Water for flowers I had heard neither of the author nor the title before. But as I was to discover this is the first time her works have been translated into English. And as much as I wish I could read french it is something that still eludes me. But to the point in hand. I can safely say that I have never read a book where our hero is that of a cemetery caretaker. To be honest it had never dawned on me that such a job exists. where I live cemeteries are small affairs looked after by a dedicated group of retirees. I think in part to get out of the house for a bit and to chat to those who make their way through the grounds. But what sort of life can our hero have being surrounded by the dead all day?  And what mysteries were to be found in a book that was neither a thriller nor crime fiction?

      When we first meet Toussaint she is coming to a crossroads in her life. Stuck in a holding pattern she is simply existing in this eternal resting place of the dead. But as is so often the way with a great book things are about to change for better or worse. I love the empath and connection you get from Perrin's hero. Despite all, she feels a need to look after those who are being slowly forgotten. She is steadily cataloging in her many journals their lives and loves. And even the last words to be said over them and in her wake she leaves a testimony to the great human experience. For me, she is one of those characters who now lives full-formed within my head. The way she sounds and moves, her need to care and the great melancholy she carries in her heart all go into making her a whole real person for me. The author has such an exquisite way of creating these people for us to follow. You become so wholeheartedly invested in them that one might be mistaken for thinking of them as close friends. Their ups and down become so firmly rooted within your mind as you spend just a little time with them.  

     This book contains so much within its page that it is hard to quantify just where it fits into the world of genres. On the one hand, it is a mediation on what it means to go on living when all you want to do is let grief swallow you whole. But it's also just about how funny life can be, when you think you have everything figured out she is sure to throw a curveball at you, and then your spirling off in a direction you never thought possible. And there are definitely moments of absurdity that certainly made me laugh to myself. But maybe that's the point here, she is trying to bottle just a little of what it means to be alive. We are never completely bathed in joy and happiness and that is what makes those moments so special. We need a little of the dark to enjoy the light. It is a style that I have found more and more with french writing this mix of some grand romance mixed with an expectance that life is rarely what we expect it to be. Dark clouds will always come around sooner or later and a broken heart is just part of life.

     I was surprised by how quickly I fell in love with this book. The author gently lays you down into her world and to some extent, you feel like a ghost following her hero around as she not only tries to live her life but solve the more than slightly strange mystery that has finally come to pull her out of the rut she has been stuck in for so very long.  And whilst I'm sure the reality of the job bares little connection to the one so great crafted in her book I must confess to daydreaming about stepping away from my not-so-great job to care for those who have slipped off this mortal coil. And to meet all those people who come and go from a place we seldom visit. This is one of those books that is great to read on a sunny day when the breeze is just right and you want to escape for a couple of hours and find a renewed faith in this thing we call the human experience.